OK Kevin, hopefully they'll take that on board. Apologies if I was a little short.

Totally disagree. Should be encouraged when the curcumstances are right. That's a right knees up that site.

You're kidding me? Spurs and Villa actually pay Rovers for advise on their Club Shops?!? How does that work? "Good Morning Mr Spurs, Good Morning Mr Villa. Please take a seat. I understand you want some advise on our club shop? Well, we don't have a club shop anymore, we sold it to Sports World on a ten year contract. We do however have a DVD for sale, but that's only available from our Ticket Office. Thank you for coming, I hope that's helped. Our consultancy fee is £10,000 please. Good day."

He scored a great goal last season from an acute angle, I think it was against Charlton, he also scored a good goal against Wolves in 2003. He's scored 7 league goals in 3 seasons. He's versatile apparently. He's good at running up and down. He's sorted his hair out over the last couple of years and we get to call him Bert instead of Brett. Other than that I'm struggling.

I very much doubt that that has anything to do with it to be honest. We've always had scapegoats let's not forget, even when we were winning the Premiership we had to have one, and he was English. That fact that Emerton is Australian is probably just an added bonus as it annoys you. What do I think? He hasn't done the business has he? Surely there can't be any debate on that. I think he's a bit slow in the footballing brains department. Having said that he is versatile and maybe Hughes has him down for the right back slot? So it's a strange one alright. I don't dislike the fella, far from it, he's a Rovers player after all, I just don't look forward to seeing him play as much as some of the others. Let's see how he gets on, his confidence may be up after the World Cup and Rovers have just showed what they think of him with a new 4 year contract. Maybe a new Bert will emerge next season? Then again.....

[Mr Burns] Excellent [/Mr Burns] Fife, can you get cracking on this? I'll expect the first five chapters, as above (with the exception of Chapter Three - amended to "Don Revies Dirty Leeds and their cheating no good centre half Jack Charlton") on my desk by Monday 9.00am. (BTW - Chapters One and Two will need some padding out, just put some stuff in there about Dougan and Cup Final tickets or something)

Writing a book!? "Blackburn Rovers legend Ronnie Clayton wore the number 4 shirt." There's not enough material for that den. The sequel "Blackburn Rovers legend Bryan Douglas wore the number 7 and number 10 shirts" would flop as well. Florida Rover asked me (obviously thinks I'm clued up or I'm getting on a bit ) but didn't want to start a new thread. Which I'm glad we did as it's been a good read. He's thinking of doing the retro shirt thing. Which is a good idea for the "club shop" really - selling the Toffs shirts but with "CLAYTON" "4" on the back etc etc So, in what year did Rovers first go to 4-4-2?

1-1

OK chaps. Thanks for the info. Som more questions for you old timers / people fortunate enough to have watched a golden era of football, then, 2-3-5 appears to be the formation everyone adopted and was popular with the fans as there was more attacking play. So, who / when / which bright spark came into training one day and said "OK lads, we're not going to play 2-3-5 this weekend, we're going to try a 4-4-2 formation." Who can we blame? Did football change almost overnight? Did things go straight from 2-3-5 (as such) to 4-4-2? How did football fans react to this change? and how did this effect the fortunes of BRFC?

Thanks Al, Jim. Yes, you're right we do need to listen to the guys who were fortunate enough to watch them play and that's why I asked the question; of anyone who saw them play and would therefore know the answer. My powers of deduction tell me that the pi and phone number stuff was just a gag. So in summary: Ronnie Clayton 4. Bryan Douglas 7 (although he did also wear 10 but that was at the end of his playing career). Cheers

That's what I'd originally heard Bryan. Did Duggie have the 0254 number on as well? Clayton was known to hate maths, and for good reason. School kids could really mix it in those days when it came to random pi questions. "Excuse me Mr Clayton, I know you're Captain of England but could you show me a simple method to calculate pi accurately to an arbitrary number of digits?" It wouldn't happen these days of course, which is probably a good thng. Having said all that I think I'll just go with the "4" and "10" answers.

Many thanks for the replies chaps.

Hopefully someone can help. What numbers did these guys have on the back of their shirts? Thanks

Yeah, whatever. Anyway, with a bit of luck Neill will sign a new contract now as well. After all Reid, Morten Gamst Pedersen and Ryan Nelsen have all signed new contracts this summer. Maybe he'll follow suit?

Yes. As Bobby G would no doubt put it, and probably will very soon: "That's good news, I hope that Neill follows in Reid and Nelson's footsteps."

Quality matty! That's a bad shirt though. Sorry.

Good preview! "Reformed leg-breaker Lucas Neill..... Barcelona were briefly said to be interested, a transfer link so daft it could only be outdone if Real Madrid bid Melbourne Victory FC £67m for Kevin Muscat."

Yeah I know, hopefully you're wrong. Ultimately what's going to be more rewarding for him though? Making Rovers European Champions or Manchester United? Besides I think it's only fair that they give Sir Alex another 20-30 years to get it right again.

Best shirt for me was the home 1992-93 / 1993-94. Closely followed by the Championship winning one that we had in 94-95 and 95-96. "Argentina Blue"? You on about the Speedie era McEwans promotion shirt? Very nice.

1. Chelsea 2. Liverpool 3. Arsenal 4. Man Utd 5. Blackburn Rovers 6. Spurs 7. West Ham 8. Newcastle 9. Everton 10. Portsmouth 11. Aston Villa 12. Reading 13. Middlesbrough 14. Man City 15. Bolton 16. Wigan 17. Charlton 18. Fulham 19. Watford 20. Sheff Utd

2-0 Rovers.

Well here we are again Roar and Roarinas, another season upon us. Once again Ewood will soon be echoing to the sound of willow on leather as our first home pre-season game takes place on Saturday against the mighty New Zealand. The anticipation of seeing all your old favourites running around at half speed! The new signings! Are they any good? (I’ll never forget seeing Grabbi’s first game for Rovers on a pre-season tour in Germany, “Here we go!” I thought “Seven million pounds worth of striker here, he’ll rip this German pub team to pieces!” He had no pace, he constantly drifted out to the left wing and had very little of that unquantifiable thing called a “presence” about him, still I’m no judge.) I think we’ve done pretty well this close season in the transfer market. Jason Roberts is more than a handful for any centre half, he posed us problems last season at any rate. Franny Jeffers? Who knows, the potential is there. I’ll not hold my breath though, anything from him will be a bonus. We also bought a keeper who I know nothing about, Jason Brown. We also brought in McCarthy more on “him” later. Downside was obviously losing the occasionally hamstrung Welsh Weasel, but by bringing in two players in the shape of Roberts & McCarthy I can’t see how that area has been weakened. Of course Neill and Bert refusing to sign new contracts, isn’t the best of news (I’m joking about Bert by the way). Some still believe and prattle on about Nelsen going to Portsmouth, this despite; Rovers turning down the initial £4.3m bid (they’ve since upped it to £5m according to reports- wooooooooo!), the player making the right noises about wanting to be fit and back in the team to face Portsmouth, Rovers playing European football next season and finally Portsmouth buying a new centre half in the shape of a wardrobe in Sol Campbell. We shall see. Anyway, the pitch? How will it look? All yellow and burnt like my lawn? Will the same people be sat round you as last year making the same rubbish jokes? Has the price of a pint gone up on the Blackburn End? Has it gone down?! Will the bar staff be as inefficient as in recent seasons? I’d just like to clear something up. There was talk at the back end of last season on BRFCS.com of my leaving for www.rovers.co.uk in the summer. I’m pleased to say that it never happened, they said they wouldn't get the money together but mainly it was because they didn’t want me in the first place, but if they had made an approach I’d have turned it down flat. I love this place, the town, the people, even the endless, boring, Transfer Rumour threads. Everything. In fact I hope to do all my monthly reviews on BRFCS.com for the rest of my career unless of course something better turns up. And they say there’s no loyalty in football anymore? Moving on, we beat near neighbours Accrington Stanley 3-0 pre season on July 19th. Goals from two of our new players Jason Roberts and Francis Jeffers. Matt Derbyshire with the third. Good luck to Stanley next season, their first back in the league since 1962. Older viewers will recall the events that surrounded their demise, but just in case here’s a reminder. Basically Stanley were forced to resign from the Football League. Apparently, so I’ve been told, there was a meat shortage in the burnley area. burnley’s then Chairman, Bob “The Butcher” Lord, wielding his financial strength like a rusty meat cleaver, actually bought Stanley’s first team squad, management team and board of directors and used them to make pies, which he then sold at turf moor on match days. Some in Accrington will never forgive burnley for what happened. Who can blame them? July 22 - saw us take on Hamburg somewhere in Europe. We drew one each, Morten Gamst Pedersen (as he now likes to be known – and that name will appear on the back of his shirt next season) scored with a trademark spectacular goal from 25 yards smacked high into the top… blah de blah – you know what he does. July 28 - Rovers watched Greek champions Olympiakos. August 5 - Rovers beat Ale Mania Aachen 3-2 somewhere in Europe. Sounds like a good place to visit. McCarthy opening “his” account, Jason Roberts with the second and Morten Gamst Pedersen with the third, which was probably a volley or something from an acute angle that he had no right to score from etc etc. August 9 – Sparta Rotherham beat Rovers 1-0 in a game played in Holland, Nr Belgium. Which brings us to Saturdays match against the New Zealand national team. A strange choice for our last friendly before the season starts. In fact a bloody stupid choice. Have you seen the size of those lads? They’re huge! Their pack will simply be too strong for us and we’ve too many light weights in our scrum. I can only see this going one way I’m afraid. I just hope there aren’t many injuries. I know the Welsh like their Rugby but this is taking things too far as far as I’m concerned. But how can I finish this review thingy / nonsense without recounting the tale, no make that the saga, of our attempts to sign a third new striker. I’ve done a little search on the internet on two of the main characters via top internet search engine googel, I was surprised by the results… Mido: Overtired First of all Hughesy went after Mido, the big burly purple Egyptian with stupid hair. Last year he was on loan at one of the biggest clubs in the world (up there with Birmingham City), London mega club and the second biggest club in North London, Tottenham Hotspurs. Mido is known to many within football, bizarrely, as “the fourth choice Tweenie”. Basically, as I understand it, and I still don’t, he just messed us about for a month whilst looking for a better offer from Children’s ITV. Probably. Oh well, whatever, nevermind. So Hughes looked elsewhere and did we get lucky or what? Benni McCarthy: Nice Eyes Our glorious Welsh leader turned his attentions to South African Benni McCarthy. Well, what can you say? I’ve gone on record before (“Nothing Surprises Me Anymore (In Football)” EMI Cat. No. 79573220. Released Feb 12 1987 – Deleted Feb 13 1987. No one bought it) to say that nothing surprises me in football anymore. And now this! Good Heavens! What a good looking lad! This could be the signing that puts a few more bums on seats. Hughes is said to have been chasing Benni for well over 12 months now, it’s not hard to see why. The new third kit will not sell well though. Mark my words on this. Red “shirt”, blue shorts and no socks is not going to catch on. There are already doubts in some quarters about Benni’s strength though. On signing “he” said “I’ve had so many opportunities for me to come to England but always something seemed to go wrong, the wind always blew me to Portugal, to Spain or Holland but never to England.” That doesn’t sound good to me. Last thing we need on a wet and windy day in December is for our star centre forward to go up for a high cross at the Blackburn End only to be caught by a gust of wind and end up in the middle of Amsterdam, Barcelona, or as above, Las bleeding Vegas. Franny Jeffers could well suffer a similar fate. Still, Hughesy know’s best and he hasn’t let us down yet has he? So, there you have it, they’ll be more of the same weak gags as last season coming up over the next few months, hopefully you’ve forgotten most of them by now. Another new season! European football as well! Bring it on!

Yep - Radagast is right - that's Mikkey D that AS and a damned fine drummer he is too and no mistake, he still doesn't play Overkill as well as Phil Taylor though. The Animal left Motorhead (for the second time) around about 1991 - since then it's been Mikkey. Phil has since cut hs hair and is world darts champion. Who'd have throught? Can I recommend Ace of Spades from the Classic Albums DVD series? Very good and very funny in places. Also for a more up to date "live" experience catch the Stage Fright DVD. The 'head also have a new album out at the end of August, I've heard four tracks from it already, the usual quality stuff. They won't / can't / shouldn't change.

More's the point, Is Lucas Neill?

Still got it. It's by Frenzy. They should play it, just the once. It's just a shame I don't have a record player anymore. ribblesdale - Wrote for Luck would be a better choice.